Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Rattner leaves auto job as NY AG seeks settlement

p style="font-style: italic;" class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size:130%;"NY attorney general is pushing for a legal settlement with Rattner, who also has ties to the scandal in New Mexico/span/p p class="MsoNormal"Remember a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Rattner" target="_blank"Steven Rattner/a? He’s the man who was heading President Barack Obama’s auto-bailout program and who had been linked to a New York pension scandal that has spread to New Mexico and beyond./p p class="MsoNormal"Well, he resigned from the Obama administration job earlier this week. Then a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090714/ap_on_re_us/us_auto_task_force_rattner_8" target="_blank"The Associated Press/a reported that the New York attorney general is pushing for a legal settlement that would allow Rattner to avoid civil charges for his role in the scandal./p p class="MsoNormal"From the AP:/p p class="MsoNormal"/pblockquote style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"p class="MsoNormal"“Rattner announced Monday that he was resigning his position on the White House’s auto industry task force, which led the restructure of General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC. It remained unclear Tuesday whether that departure had anything to do with the ongoing public corruption probe that has nibbled at his heels in New York./p p class="MsoNormal"“… A person familiar with the investigation said (AG Andrew) Cuomo’s office hasn’t been interested in pressing a criminal case against Rattner or a href="http://www.quadranglegroup.com/" target="_blank"Quadrangle/a (the company involved in the scandal, which Rattner used to work for) but recently began pressing both for legal settlements that would allow them to avoid civil charges. The person wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss the pending investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity./p p class="MsoNormal"“Several other companies have cut similar settlement deals recently.”/p/blockquotep class="MsoNormal"/p p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size:130%;"Rattner’s New Mexico connection/span/p p class="MsoNormal"Rattner, as a href="http://haussamen.blogspot.com/2009/04/embattled-obama-exec-rattner-gave-20k.html"I’ve previously written/a, gave $5,000 to Gov. a href="http://governor.state.nm.us/" target="_blank"Bill Richardson’s/a 2002 gubernatorial campaign and $15,000 to Richardson’s 2006 re-election bid, according to the money-in-politics Web site a href="http://www.followthemoney.org/database/search.phtml?searchbox=Rattneramp;Type%5b%5d=Contributorsamp;States%5b%5d=NMamp;Years%5b%5d=2009amp;Years%5b%5d=2008amp;Years%5b%5d=2007amp;Years%5b%5d=2006amp;Years%5b%5d=2005amp;Years%5b%5d=2004amp;Years%5b%5d=2003amp;Years%5b%5d=2002amp;Years%5b%5d=2001amp;Years%5b%5d=2000" target="_blank"followthemoney.org/a./p p class="MsoNormal"Richardson heads the a href="http://www.sic.state.nm.us/" target="_blank"State Investment Council/a (SIC), which manages the state’s investments. In October 2005, the SIC voted to invest $20 million with Quadrangle. At the time of the 2002 and 2006 campaign contributions, Rattner was a managing principle in the company, which he left in February of this year to take the auto-bailout job./p p class="MsoNormal"A federal grand jury in New Mexico is a href="http://haussamen.blogspot.com/2009/06/educational-retirement-board-releases.html"also investigating/a the investment scandal, though Rattner and Quadrangle have not been named -- at least publicly -- as being targets of that probe./p p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size:130%;"The New York corruption probe/span/p p class="MsoNormal"Though he hasn’t been charged with any wrongdoing, Rattner has been identified by a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/nyregion/17pension.html?_r=1" target="_blank"national media outlets/a as the unnamed person in federal documents who allegedly arranged in late 2004 for Quadrangle to pay $1.1 million in exchange for business with the state of New York. Hank Morris is under indictment in the New York case, accused of using his position in that state’s comptroller’s office to shake down companies wanting to do business with the state’s pension fund, including Quadrangle./p p class="MsoNormal"Morris is accused of taking 95 percent of the money from Quadrangle as a kickback. He denies the allegations./p p class="MsoNormal"Morris, according to a href="http://www.haussamen.com/UpdatedSICMarketerList.pdf" target="_blank"a document released by the SIC/a, was the third-party marketer who helped secure the New Mexico investment contract for Quadrangle in 2005. The amount he was paid by Quadrangle for his work in New Mexico has not been disclosed./p p class="MsoNormal"Spokesmen for Quadrangle, Rattner and Cuomo’s office declined to comment to the AP earlier this week./p p class="MsoNormal"While the AP said it was unclear whether Rattner’s resignation had anything to do with the corruption probe in New York, a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/did_pay-to-play_probe_cause_rattners_resignation.php?ref=m2" target="_blank"Talking Points Memo/a is among a handful of media outlets reporting that the two probably are related./pdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23370090-4352471267244351022?l=haussamen.blogspot.com'//div